The Hollow Ground by Natalie S.Harnett Spotlight and Giveaway!

Happy St.Patricks Day everyone!! Today I am featuring The Hollow Ground by Natalie S. Harnett and it is about an Irish American family living and working in Pennsylvania.

A coming of age, historical and American tragedy taking place in the 1960's. 

Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin's Press 

Publication date: May 13, 2014

 "THE BEST NOVEL OF 2014."~PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

#1 AUDIBLE BEST SELLER

AMAZON BEST SELLER

GOODREADS BOOK GROUP WORTHY TITLE

LIBRARY JOURNAL's "Debuts with Buzz" Selection

SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE's '5 Books to Read This Month'


NYC Irish Arts Center 2015 Book Day Pick

The Hollow Ground is inspired by the coal mines fires that took place in Centralia and Carbondale, PA in the 1960s, and it has a strong Irish American influence as well.  Not only is the novel about an Irish American family but it also touches on the history of Irish Americans in the country, including the notorious Molly Maguires.

The Book

Set amongst the deadly coal mine fires of 1960s Pennsylvania, The Hollow Ground is an extraordinary debut that will "grab you by the brisket and not let go." (Gary Shteyngart) 

"We walk on fire or air, so Daddy liked to say. Basement floors too hot to touch. Steaming green lawns in the dead of winter. Sinkholes, quick and sudden, plunging open at your feet."

The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the Black Lung stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft. In the aftermath, decades' old secrets threaten to prove just as dangerous to the Howleys as the burning, hollow ground beneath their feet. Inspired by real-life events in now-infamous Centralia and the equally devastated town of Carbondale, The Hollow Ground is an extraordinary debut with an atmospheric, voice-driven narrative and an indelible sense of place. Not since To Kill a Mockingbird has a young character been so heartbreakingly captivating. A "powerful story of love and survival" (Pulitzer Prize finalist David Gates), Harnett's novel is a must-read for lovers of literary fiction.

Praise for the Book

An extraordinary debut with an atmospheric, voice-driven narrative and an indelible sense of place. Lovers of literary fiction will find in Harnett’s young, determined protagonist a character as heartbreakingly captivating as Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

“The Hollow Ground is a coming-of-age novel, a  murder mystery, a family saga, and an American tragedy of an environmentally and economically devastated region. But most of all, it’s a painful and powerful story of love and survival.”  —David Gates, Pulitzer Prize  finalist 

"A grand achievement, a story fierce in its honesty about family love and betrayal.” --Maureen Howard, National Book Critics Circle Award winner

"Brigid Howley is as unforgettable as Francie in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” and hands down this is the best novel of 2014."~PROVIDENCE JOURNAL

". . .the flap copy.  . . compare[s] the novel’s child narrator, Brigid Howley, to Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, and I have to say, Harnett earns the comparison. . . the most rounded, complete child narrator I’ve read in years."~novelhistorian.com 

“The Hollow Ground recalls nothing so much as the dark and powerful dramas of Eugene O’Neill. . . ."  —Rebecca Goldstein, Whiting Writer’s Award winner

"Natalie S. Harnett in The Hollow Ground has captured the essence of the people, history and culture of Pennsylvania's Anthracite Region, and how too often the small towns here, most notably the real-life Centralia, faced existential threats from coal mine fires that seemed to burn forever." --David DeKok, author of Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire

The Author

Natalie S. Harnett has an MFA from Columbia and has been awarded an Edward Albee Fellowship, a Summer Literary Seminars Fellowship, and a Vermont Studio Center Writer’s Grant. Her fiction has been a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize, the Mid-List Press First Series Award for the Novel, the Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers, and The Ray Bradbury Short Story Fellowship.  Her publications include The Irish Echo, The Madison Review, The MacGuffin and The New York Times. Her debut novel, THE HOLLOW GROUND, is an Amazon and Audible best seller; a Goodreads Book Group Worthy title; a LIBRARY JOURNAL's "Debuts with Buzz" selection; and a SAN DIEGO MAGAZINE's '5 Books to Read This Month' selection. She lives on Long Island with her husband and child.

Learn more about Natalie at the following links:
 www.natalieharnett.com, https://www.facebook.com/NatalieSHarnett , https://plus.google.com/103785709174371624940/posts, https://twitter.com/nataliesharnett

Purchase Links
  Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible

The author has graciously donated three copies for the giveaway! This is for US only and prizes will be sent out by publisher. Thank you and good luck!

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